Yesterday I was checking in with my friend Nancy Armstrong’s blog, MsPlacedDemocrat and the latest post said, “Sad news…”

I read on:

Hello Everyone,

It is with great sadness that we inform you that our mother, Nancy “Ms Placed Democrat” Armstrong, unexpectedly passed away this morning. We know that this blog was her passion and she enjoyed everyone’s support. While our opinions often ended up on opposite sides of the issues we couldn’t deny her passion about veteran’s affairs and improving our government so that we could have a better life. Thank you for making her last year one of great personal growth and happiness for her.

Thank you,

Samantha & Justin

To say the very least I was absolutely stunned. I had just finished writing a post and if this news came first I would never have been able to write. Just less than 24-hours later I’m able to say this about Nancy.

A fellow Veteran and blogger I shared comments and many email with Nancy over the past year. Nancy was a huge Hillary Clinton supporter and even worked on her campaign before becoming disillusioned and fed up with Democrats and especially the very Left-Wing of that party.

Nancy recently wrote to me asking how she could improve traffic to her site and then almost gave up on her blog. I, along with many others, commented and encouraged her to fight on as we are small cogs in the wheel of blogging and help form the sum of its parts.

Nancy began researching ACORN and exposed many details through her hard work and tenacity. Nancy was a fighter, not a quitter and she was a credit to the blogging community and the political fight taking place today. Nancy made us smarter and aware through her commitment.

Nancy appeared on the Glenn Beck show not long ago and was eloquent as she spoke of her fight against ACORN and other political matters. She was professional and demonstrated her class while appearing on camera.

Writing this is difficult, I will miss seeing NavyVet48 in my comments each week and especially on my Saturday “Moonbat” column, which Nancy told me always brought a smile to her face and a bit of truth to keep us honest.

Tomorrow’s “Moonbat” will be posted as usual but in honor of Nancy Armstrong, NavyVet48, blogger extraordinaire, colleague, patriot and my friend. I’m sure Nancy would approve.

God Bless You Nancy and Rest In Peace. You will be missed as we honor you. INDEED!

See more at The American Spectator

Beware of compromise by politicians; it usually doesn’t turn out in favor of the people who vote for these clowns.

Senator Grassley (R-IA) is the GOPs chief negotiator for healthcare reform known as socialized medicine. Mr. Grassley is about to be had and taxpayers will pay for it in spades and lives.

Don’t worry; the politicians will continue to get their separate healthcare policy, the gold standard of real healthcare. To hell with the masses, you’re nothing but a Bolshevik preparing for your grave.

Democrats throw out the bait like tossing bloody chum into the waters to attract fish, then real the poor things in and gut them in the halls of Congress. Rahm Emanuel then wraps the remains in a fresh Chicago Sun-Times and the end result is loss of freedom, liberty and choice.

We have Senators from farm states modeling a healthcare option similar to a co-op except they leave out the detail of government ownership. OOPS!

North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad confirmed this week that the current plan is to have the feds provide $6 billion in start-up cash, then appoint an “interim” national board to set policies for a network of state or regional co-ops. Mr. Conrad said this new network could attract 12 million people, making it the third-largest health insurer in the country.

Polls show the American people do not want Obamacare. National Public Radio found that likely voters disapprove of Obamacare 47%-42% with 39% strongly opposed compared to 25% strongly in favor.

Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that 42% of Americans called Obamacare a “bad idea” while only 36% said it was a “good idea.”

Finally, the New York Times/CBS News poll found: “Americans are concerned that revamping the health care system would reduce the quality of their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and tax bills, and limit their options in choosing doctors, treatments and tests.”

With co-ops, the government role is more subtle, if nearly as corrosive as the taxpayer subsidized “public option.” Mr. Conrad’s starts with $6 billion in “seed money,” which is more than the total annual revenue of all but 20 of the nation’s private plans. This would provide a lower cost of capital than private firms and an implicit claim on any other money the co-ops need. The feds may then exempt co-ops from the taxes that private insurers pay, which average about 1.2% of premiums. This would let co-ops offer lower prices and poach customers with government-subsidized premiums.

The Wall Street Journal writes:

These co-ops sound a lot like a health-care Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Congress created because there was supposedly no secondary mortgage market. The duo proceeded to use their government subsidy to dominate the market and drive out private competitors. And all of this is before Congressional liberals get their hands on these co-ops.

Democrat Mary Bevering of Fort Madison Iowa, told the NYT:

“We need to fix health care but if the government creates the system, I’m afraid the quality of care will go down and costs will go up: We will pay more taxes.”

Maybe Ms. Bevering can get her Iowa colleague Mr. Grassley aside and talk some sense into him.

Heritage Foundation VP for domestic policy Stuart Butler writes in today’s Washington Times:

If the U.S. health care sector were a separate national economy, it would be the sixth largest in the world – bigger that Britain’s entire economy. Imagine five bickering congressional committees trying to redesign the British economy successfully in just a few weeks. No wonder people are getting nervous. … [and] the congressional majority wants to revamp the huge health care economy using the doctrine of central planning. So we have thousands of pages of legislation, with potentially hundreds of thousands of pages of rules and dozens of boards and “czars.” These will regulate prices, reorganize hospitals and doctors, and decide what health care each of us should and should not have.

The Heritage Foundation offers a Conservative reform plan for healthcare:

Expand coverage by reforming Medicaid: Millions of uninsured Americans are eligible for programs such as Medicaid, yet they don’t sign up. Policymakers should focus on approaches that are patient-centered instead of system-centered. The current Medicaid structure is based on a system that reimburses providers for the services that they supply to beneficiaries. A patient-centered approach would direct Medicaid funds to the patient and reflect the individual needs of that patient.

Incentivize Americans to make their own health care decisions: Rather than micromanage the health system via central planning, we need to get the system’s basic incentives right. Under the current system, with tax-subsidized, third-party insurance, everyone has the incentive to spend more of someone else’s money. No wonder costs are exploding. Getting incentives right means things like pushing employers to show their employees how much of their compensation comes as health insurance. That would encourage all of us to look harder to see if our insurance is good value for money and to opt for fatter paychecks and less costly fringe benefits.

Make it easier for Americans to shop for health insurance: But even if Americans were incentivized to make their own insurance decisions, it is still currently very difficult for them to find the right bargains for them under the current system. “Health Insurance Exchange” is the generic name some have given such administrative mechanisms; Utah recently enacted health reform that creates a “Portal” for this purpose. This is exactly the kind of state level experimentation that the federal government should be encouraging.

Congress has around 17 healthcare options from the private sector and paid for by the taxpayers. We should absolutely demand no less for ourselves, our families, for all American’s. Congress does not use the “public option” they would force upon us.

Killing Obamacare and the “public option” for US healthcare would not only be the humane thing to do, it would be the patriotic thing to do. Indeed!

Sure you’ve heard of Rahm Emanuel, the former Representative from Chicago turned Barack Hussein Obama’s Chief of Staff and purveyor of dead fish wrapped in newspaper for enemies.

But have you heard of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel? A bioethicist, Dr. Emanuel was chosen as a special advisor to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy. He is “working on the “health care reform” effort.” He is “detailed” to the OMB spot and is still officially an employee of The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Emanuel recently authored an article in the Lancet describing the various models of non-market health care rationing. Titled “Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions”, which is co-authored with Govind Persad and Alan Wertheimer.

In the book its authors simply review the pros and cons of the various ways of deciding who gets treated and who doesn’t. The allocation mechanisms they discuss are divided into strategies and substrategies. The pros and cons of each are laid out.

Treating People Equally -

1. Lottery
2. First-come, first served

Prioritarianism -

1. Sickest first
2. Youngest first

Utilitarianism -

1. Saving the most lives
2. Saving the most life-years
3. Saving the most socially useful
4. Reciprocity (paying back people who have ‘contributed’, such as organ donors)

The authors, believing they are GOD write:

Because none of the currently used systems satisfy all ethical requirements for just allocation, we propose an alternative:

The complete lives system. This system incorporates five principles: (Emphasis LCs)

Youngest-first, prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value..… When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated … the complete lives system is least vulnerable to corruption. Age can be established quickly and accurately from identity documents. Prognosis allocation encourages physicians to improve patients’ health, unlike the perverse incentives to sicken patients or misrepresent health that the sickest-first allocation creates.

The paper concludes:

“The complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles:

1. Youngest-first
2. Prognosis
3. Lottery
4. Saving the most lives.

In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising [sic] these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising [sic] benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo.”

Is the United States preparing for “scarce medical care” when we have the finest medical system in the world? Don’t people play lotteries that fund more government programs because the politicians mismanage everything they touch? Do we have Dr. Mengele advising Obama on healthcare while debate on the issues of reform remains hidden from the public?

Presidential appointees are deciding what medical plans cover what, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare. These people want to have the government decide who lives and who dies?

Dr. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free.

“Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change,” he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

Savings, Dr. Emanuel writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients:

Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Dr. Emanuel believes that “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care.

He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).

Dr. Emanuel explicitly defends discrimination against older patients:

“Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Obama and his medical ilk want to control costs by controlling innovation. Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too “enamored with technology” and is determined to reduce access to it.

However, Obamacare would involve technology telling doctors how to render treatment via electronically delivered guidelines called “embedded clinical decision support”.

Dr. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much:

“Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians’ offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms” (JAMA, June 18, 2008).

Betsy McCaughey is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former New York lieutenant governor writes:

No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support.

In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: “Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

Barack Hussein Obama wants a 90-year old person that currently has drugs and medical care available to live and have quality of life to take a pain pill instead.

Barack Hussein Obama wants a disabled child or child from a botched abortion to be allowed to die.

Barack Hussein Obama and his miserable cohorts are not GOD; they are murderous zealots who must be stopped.

WAKE UP AMERICA!! FIGHT THESE PEOPLE NOW. YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FAMILY’S LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! INDEED!!!!!!!!